DEMOCRATS TO GET BRIEFINGS ON WAR

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11 —The Administration, in an apparent response to criticisms from Senator Hubert H. Humphrey, said today it would try to provide high‐level briefings on Vietnam and other foreign policy problems to Democratic candidates for the Presidency.

Charles Bray 3d, a State Department spokesman, told news men this morning that Secretary of State William P. Rogers, “is entirely prepared to make himself available for this purpose,” when he returns from the President's trip to China, which begins next week.

At a briefing in Key Biscayne, where Mr. Nixon is spending the weekend, a deputy press secretary. Gerald L. Warren, said that “any member of the House or Senate may receive a briefing on our Vietnam policy,” and later broadened this to include Presidential candidates who are not members of Congress.

“If any figure in public life wants to call the National Security Council,” he said, “I'm sure that call would be welcomed.”

On Wednesday, when Mr. Nixon suggested that criticism of his peace proposals might weaken his hand at the Paris peace talks, Mr. Humphrey said that opposition candidates might be more sympathetic to Mr. Nixon's plans if he would give them detailed information ahout his negotiating strategy.

Mr. Humphrey made much the same point today, noting that Mr. Nixon had also said that Democratic Presidential candidates had a “higher responsibility” than ordinary critics. The Minnesota Democrat said that the President had an equal responsibility to keep candidates informed by arranging in‐depth discussions with Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Henry A. Kissitiger, White House adviser on national security.

Informed of Secretary Roger's offer, Mr. Humphrey promptly announced that he would request a briefing from Mr. Rogers when the China trip ended.

Elsewhere around the country, other Democratic challengers continued to press the Vietnam issue, which has suddenly resurfaced here in the form of a lively debate over Mr. Nixon's assertion that Democratic dissent in an election year might prolong the war by delaying serious negotiations.

In New Hampshire, Senator Edmund S. Muskie, a major target of the Administration's attacks, told a high school audience in Nashua that if he is guilty, as charged, of not rallying behind Mr. Nixon's peace plan, then Mr. Nixon was equally at fault during the Presidency of Lyndon B. Johnson.

“If I am guilty of aiding and abetting the enemy,” he said, then Mr. Nixon “must have been.”

Nixon Criticism Cited

Mr. Muskie said that Mr. Nixon had “whipsawed” Mr.

Johnson during 1966 by accusing him of building up American forces too slowly and then accusing him of building them up too fast. Mr. Muskie added that in 1965 Mr. Nixon had urged a change in military Strategy. The Maine Democrat then asked:

“Is the quality of the criticism that much different?” Senator Henry M. Jackson, Meanwhile, continued to stay clear of the debate over dissent and concentrated instead on a proposal for a mutual treeze by the United States, the Soviet Union and China on military aid to North and South Vietnam.

In a statement released yesterday in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., the Washington Democrat said that such an “agreement among the big powers for a mutual termination of military assisthnce and hardware to the parties directly involved could balm down the fighting on both sides and speed the end of the United States role in the Vietname conflict.”

Mr. Humphrey has also added Some variations to his Vietnam proposals. Earlier, he had called for the setting of a “date certain” for American withdrawal, at which time negotiations Would begin to obtain the release of American prisoners of War.

Yesterday, the Minnesota Democrat said that an “interim government” should be established in Saigon until the South Vietnamese can choose a new government in free elections. Mr. Humphrey also said he would provide American military and economic aid—in the form of equipment but not Men—after the United States withdraws, but only if South Vietnam comes under renewed attacks and such aid is judged to be in United States interests

Administration criticism of Jr. Nixon's Democratic oppo

nents subsided somewhat today, ‐with one prominent exception.

Secretary of Defense Melvin R. laird, appearing before the Civic Clubs of San Diego, said.

”Responsible men will not encourage the enemy to hold out in anticipation of a more generous settlement. Rsponsible men will reconize that we can have only one President at Lime.”

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A version of this archives appears in print on February 12, 1972, on Page 5 of the New York edition with the headline: DEMOCRATS TO GET BRIEFINGS ON WAR. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe